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As Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education, plots and plans the future funding of our public schools, we should take a look at the system she wants to install, vouchers and charter schools. Currently, there are 14 states, and the District of Columbia, that have voucher systems. They include: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia,…

Incentive is one of the key ingredients to obtaining great teachers…according to the preliminary findings from a study being conducted at Stanford. There are some teachers that have their own inner voice driving them to become the best in their field, but others are leaving the profession or coasting through it due to a lack of…

One of the big issues discussed during the Democratic debate is college tuition and the trillions of dollars of student debt. Bernie Sanders is proposing a 2% interest rate on all student loans. Sounds great, but if tuition costs keep rising, it won’t matter. Students are still going to have a huge debt upon graduation. Maybe the…

According to economist Eric Manushek, a country’s economic growth is directly attributed to the cognitive skills of the population, contrary to the belief that the rate of school attendance, student enrollment or the years of school were the key factors. What his study suggests is the school’s ability to improve a student’s basic skills in…

A study by Stanford researchers, published in Psychological Science, confirmed that shielding students from “stereotype threats” helps not only the individual students, but the entire classroom. During the study, researchers protected African-American students from negative stereotypes that usually lead to students underperforming academically compared to white students, but this was not an easy hurdle to overcome.…

Assistant Professor Jeffrey LaBelle has no problem getting students to attend his class of Biomedical Engineering Product Design and Development III. “I usually have 100 percent attendance in my class Friday mornings at 8 a.m.,” said Professor Labelle of the School of Biological Health and Systems Engineering and the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. LaBelle uses games…

There are nearly 42 million adolescents in the United States. Of these, 37 million (91%) attend a public or private school for at least 6 hours a day during the most critical years of their social, physical, and intellectual development. After the family home, schools are the primary places responsible for the development of young…

After his daugther voices her disgust with astronomy, one father dives into the reserach behind curiosity to help spark some interest of distant stars. Curiosity isn’t exclusive to mankind, and it may have been around even longer than our distant ancestors, but it is only recently that neuroscientists have attempted to understand how it works…

Why should we teach our kids about the origin of humans, and stop teaching our kids about race? Scientific studies in our children’s schools are limited, and with more budget cuts, this could further hinder the ability of schools to properly teach students all they need to thrive in today’s society. One area of science that…

Oregon has finally passed The Oregon Promise. If students graduate from high school with a 2.5 GPA and stay out of trouble, their tuition will be paid at a Oregon community college of their choice. “This will allow kids to jump into a career path or enroll in core college classes necessary for a bachelor’s…